


Walk in Darkness

by sapphireswimming



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Blood and Gore, Creepy, Gen, Gen Work, Horror, Masters Mansion (Danny Phantom), Oneshot, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: Vlad starts on the nightly tour of his castle, only to find that something isn't quite right. It turns out that ghosts can be haunted too...
Kudos: 2
Collections: Collabs and Challenges with DannyPhantomSG1





	Walk in Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6987808/2/Phantasmic-Images
> 
> DannyPhantomSG1's (@Danny Phantom SG-1 on fanfiction.net) corresponding oneshot collection was originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6972859/1/Informal-Inspirations
> 
> Prompt: "All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness…" - Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow

He walked through all of the rooms one last time before retiring for the night.

It was habit—ingrained into him years ago. Beginning at the garrets of his castle towers, he checked every room in each floor until he ended in his own chambers more than ready to bid the day farewell. He systematically and logically perused the hallways and the dark corners of otherwise unvisited rooms in the far reaches of his mansion, examining each until he was thoroughly satisfied that nothing was amiss.

After completing each section of his inspection he tapped a button on his watch which brought up a glowing ghost shield and effectively isolated that part of the house and protected it from an attack of any sort.

It was an eerie journey, his stylish Italian shoes clacking on marble floors and echoing against the suits of armor that he had acquired in his travels and kept lined up along the hall for some unknown reason.

Perhaps he enjoyed the memories, but the billionaire was not known for being sentimental. It may have been that the sharp blades of the halberds, axes, and swords brought him comfort, but it was not as if he needed physical weapons to defend himself from any puny thief who was stupid enough to enter his domain looking to abscond with his autographed Packers football.

Another possibility was that seeing the shapes of human forms in the long remote hallway brought him comfort but he would have been the first to deny that he needed human companionship to be happy.

No. He did not even know why he kept them, but it certainly was not for any of those reasons. 

Perhaps it was a way to show off his wealth to himself. No one else ever came to this place so they could not have been meant to impress any visitors. So, too, the size of the house was extravagant and unnecessary. A single man could not possibly use all of the rooms and, again, there was never any one else around to enjoy them. Having such a large residence, however, proved his status to anyone paying attention and gave a necessary boost to his image in the business world. Men with mansions make good business partners. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world, after all—of course he would own a castle.

Then again, his nightly walks often made him wish that he did not have such an impractically large home. It made his tour tedious, but he was not about to stop taking it or cutting it short by even a few rooms.

He remembered all too well what happened last time he neglected his tour… He shivered at the half crazed images floating before him as he thought back to that night. They stayed with him despite his efforts to clear his head, making the tour through his deserted house seem even lonelier than it was to begin with.

He carried no light with him because he did not really need it to see; his night vision was excellent thanks to his ghostly powers.

The halls seemed to grow longer and his steps quieter as he went along.

The shadows deepened.

He shivered, but continued on as before, except he might have had just a slightly quicker step, but he berated himself for even that small change.

He was a half-ghost, for goodness' sake! A little cold was not going to spook him in his own house.

But that was just it… this was his house. Which meant that it was plagued by all of the things that plagued him…

As he neared the next door on his route, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up and some place in the back of his head began to tingle.

After pausing a moment to steel his frayed nerves, he stretched out a hand that was still shaking against his will to turn the handle.

He was determined to continue on his way as he had planned, to look his old calm and collected self. He would not react to what was probably a false alarm and would not give them the satisfaction of knowing that he was actually scared of…

A sudden drop in temperature stopped that train of thought. Soon, it was so cold that he could see his ragged breath in front of him.

His eyes went wide and his heart stopped beating for a long moment as he stood frozen in place.

There was no explaining this away. Hallways did not randomly become thirty degrees without cause.

And suddenly, the memories surged, despite all of his desperate efforts to keep them at bay. They were the same memories that he had brushed aside earlier, the ones that were forgotten under the bright light of day but which came out to haunt him while he tread through the dark and deserted hallways of his mansion.

It was happening again.

One of _them_ was in that room.

He licked his lips and glanced around. Nothing. They were not ready to show themselves. But they knew he was there. There would be no easy escape now. They had decided to torment him and they would not leave until they had what they came for.

Just when he had finally convinced himself that it was all a dream and they would not be able to bother him because they simply did not exist and the memories weren't memories at all, they had decided to come back to shatter that fragile yet comforting illusion.

"F-fudge nutters…" he managed to whisper haltingly.

As soon as he was able to once again command his body, he tore down the hall, frantically tapping buttons on his watch as he did so.

He somehow knew that it—or they—began to move just when he had turned his back on the dark doorway they were behind.

He risked a glance over his shoulder to monitor the progress of the green glowing shield following him down the hallway. It should have been a reassuring sight, after all, he had modified it during an intense lab session on one of the rare days he was convinced that something just like this had actually happened. So it should work against it—them. But he hadn't activated it soon enough. It would not come in time, not in time to help him…

Panting, the made it to the double doors at the end of the hall, but somehow knew even before he tried the massive handles that it would be closed to him. It was as if they were locked and barred. He could rattle them on their hinges all he wanted, but the part of his mind that was still functioning rationally knew that it was useless and he was just making a spectacle of himself.

They had gotten to the door before him.

He was trapped here in this hallway. With them.

The doors were locked to his human form and the now fully-activated ghost shield would prevent his ghostly qualities from helping him.

His face paled as he realized that as per his instructions, the shield couldn't be deactivated until morning. There was no way for him to get out of here…

His only hope—and it was a desperate one—as he turned around was that the shield had separated him from the things instead of caging them all in the narrow hallway together. That frail hope was shattered, however, when he saw the shadowy shapes he had tried to hard to forget floating slowly toward him, uninhibited by his invention.

Panicked, Vlad triggered his transformation and blasted hot magenta energy at them, knowing full well from those past experiences which he had since chalked up to half-crazed dreams that it would do nothing to faze them. No matter that his blasts should have killed a mortal, disabled even the most powerful of ghosts; it did nothing to them. They didn't even seem to notice that anything had been fired their way, but they just kept coming closer and closer. They were to the third suit of armour now.

While he still had time, he moved away from the door. Even though it meant moving closer to them, he decided it was worth it to get away from the locked door. He despised feeling cornered.

He inched toward the nearest man-at-arms until he was sheltered beneath a great double bladed axe. Beady red eyes flashed at him in the reflection of the weapon's gleaming edge.

Turning to face them, he found that it was hard to distinguish their grey forms and tell where the shadows ended and they began. He knew that they were getting closer. The red became more intense and he could _feel_ them inching forward in slow motion.

Their eyes locked onto his own, rooting him in place and boring through his mind until they had exposed every evil plot and immoral thought until nothing was left but the pitiful shell of an empty and egotistical man.

He was no threat to them.

Not anymore.

Silently, the glided onward, their force growing as more and more of them materialized from the floor, walls, or empty rooms around them.

Vlad backed up when he saw the bloodlust in his eyes. They were focused on nothing more than tearing him apart limb from limb…

There was only far he could move, however, and soon a glimpse to his right confirmed that he had indeed come to rest against the wall.

There was nowhere he could go.

Whipping his head around to face his assailants, he realized just how many of them there were, hovering there without a sound.

No. There could not be that many of them. There had only ever been one or two. Even in his worst terror-filled half-remembrances, there were never more than three. But there must be nearly twenty here.

No. No; he was dreaming. He had to be. Just like he had dreamed up the others. That was all they were; they had only been nightmares. Awful, horrible, all-too-vivid nightmares that plagued him without end. But they were not real. They were not real. They never had been.

But nightmare or no, he could see them now, in front of him and bearing down with that deadly gleam unwavering in their eyes.

He looked up at them in sheer terror.

It was perhaps the first time in his life that he had ever felt so powerless, so completely helpless, so scared. He had no control over what was about to happen. He could do nothing to stop them from doing whatever they pleased. No money, no words, no ghost powers could do anything now. And there was no one to save him.

His mouth was dry, so very dry, that he barely managed to croak out, "What do you want from me?"

Silence.

His heart beat wildly in his ears and his arms trembled as he braced himself against the wall, trying not to shrink into to show the fear that was overrunning his system. The smirk with which he had faced every ghostly or human foe was conspicuously absent.

"Nothing."

.

"Everything," came the whispers from a thousand places.

With that, the shadowy shapes descended upon him en masse, until he couldn't see anything beyond a suffocating grey.

The arms of the figures closest to him lengthened out into sharp claws and they hissed like demon cats as they reached for him.

When the first one struck, he thought he was going to die.

It was a pain far greater than anything he had ever experienced. It went beyond any fight against any ghost he had met in his twenty years of travels through even the most remote reaches of the Ghost Zone. It was much more intense than the blast that stupid Jack Fenton had caused to aim straight at his face.

No, this felt as if they were digging through him, rearranging his organs and bringing ligaments to light that should never have been seen no matter how badly he was cut open. As the claws came back out, dripping with his own blood, he felt numb and unable to breathe. But the sight and smell of the blood started the flows of attacks. The claws came down again and another pair joined in and another and another.

He tried to defend himself, but it was useless; none of his powers worked on them. Electricity sparked, blasts flew, shields were thrown up. He even tried duplicating, but that only gave them an opportunity to cut into more of him at once, so he quickly terminated that attempt.

In a last desperate effort, he grabbed the axe out from the hold of the knight he stood next to, causing the empty form to fall and topple the other men-at-arms just like a row of dominoes, clashing, echoing, reverberating like some demented accompaniment to the revenge of the wronged spirits.

They continued their unholy noises as they swept through every guard he put up in order to get at him, tear his flesh, make his blood run cold even as it ran across the floor in great thick rivers.

Soon, he had lost too much of it to remain in his ghostly form and was forced to transform back into the pitiful human they all knew him to be.

Some part of his mind hoped that these creatures would leave him alone when they had stripped him of his supernatural powers, but he had no such luck. If anything, they became even more incensed to see his hair a silvery-white once more and began to reach for him with renewed vigor.

As he tried once again to get away, his feeble attempt made him fall to the floor as he slipped on his own blood.

He lay facedown, prone and open to the deadly swipes that continued to rein down upon him.

He had tried to remain stoic, but everything had become too overwhelming for him. The pain became so intense that he began to scream.

If he had had a wail like Daniel, the castle would have toppled down. But the agonizing yells did nothing to help him now—it did not stop his assailants and did not bring any help to him. There was no one around to hear him, and he doubted that they would even care to come to his aid if they did.

But he could not hold it in any longer; he screamed from the very core of his being, putting into it every ounce of his anguish and suffering. Tears streamed down his face as he curled into a fetal position and tried desperately to protect himself from the fury of his attackers.

He could smell his blood, hear the shrieks of the attacking spirits, and feel the anguish as each new stroke caused fresh blood to spill out onto the floor. There was no part of him not soaked with the warm, sticky liquid and he could not imagine that there was much more still in him.

He waited to spend out the rest of his half-life with mixed blood upon the marble floor of his ill-gotten mansion, undone by the ghosts of the same people he had stolen from, cheated, and ruined to get it.

Soon, very soon, he was gasping, desperately reaching for the air that would save him but refused to move down to his lungs. He did not even know if those were still intact; the wheezing, whistling noise coming from his chest suggested otherwise.

It seemed to go on for hours and they never seemed to tire. He wondered how long they could keep it up and decided that it would continue long after he had given up the ghost. He didn't even have the energy to realize that he had just thought of a pun, let alone react to it. He just wanted to die, or at least lose consciousness.

His vision went black long before his body stopped responding to each new wave of pain. No longer able to anticipate the blows of his attackers, he had to accept them as they came, too weak to brace himself or attempt to move. Where could he move to get away from them? They were everywhere…

Even unable to see the world around him, he could envision hosts of their red eyes leering at him through the shadows, enjoying every scream they drew from him, every drop of blood that hit the floor.

It took far too long, in his opinion, to come to the end and he willingly gave himself up to the darkness that came to claim him.

* * *

"Sir? Sir!"

A voice finally penetrated the fog of his mind, but it took several minutes to place it as his butler.

"Carl?" Vlad croaked.

"Yes, sir. Are you alright?"

It took him a long moment to process the question, and then an even longer moment to wonder why the question was asked—why should he not be alright?

That was when the events of the previous evening came crashing back through his head and he stiffened, suddenly terrified out of his mind that the ghosts were not done with him yet.

He turned a pale face to look around him. He verified that none of them were waiting to finish him off, but as he thought about it, it would have been impossible for Carl to make his way through the sea of bloodthirsty grey bodies to wake him up if they had still been here. No, that did not make any sense. The shield must be down then as well…

A quick look assured him that that conjecture, too, was right. But as his mind cleared enough to let him really take in his surroundings, his brow furrowed.

This… was all wrong.

His knights were all righted and their ceremonial weapons restored to their rightful positions, including the axe he had wielded to no avail. It looked like the place had never been disturbed; if he hadn't been there, he would not have believed that the hall had been the scene of utter chaos the night before.

He did not feel as though he had been flayed alive. In fact, he felt fine, barring a little soreness that was only to be expected from having spent the past several hours facedown on a marble floor. Propping himself on his hands and knees, he looked at himself, still barely comprehending that he was not in agony.

And then he really looked at himself.

There was no blood.

None on the floor, none on his clothes, none even dried underneath where he had been laying. It was impossible that it had been cleaned by his staff, then, without his noticing. That could explain his men-at-arms, but not the blood, not his lack of injuries.

He poked and prodded himself in a manner that must have thoroughly confused the person watching him. He did not care about his audience, however, just the fact that he had no wounds at all, not even scratched.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

"Ye-yes. I believe I am…"

"You've been working too hard again, sir, if you don't mind my saying so. Running seven companies will exhaust you like that so you don't even find your way to your own bed for the night. Let's get you up, then…"

Vlad was still too stunned to cut off the man's rant or reject the offered assistance as was his habit. Carl looked at him oddly when he had finally gotten up.

"Are you sure that you are alright, sir?"

"Yes. I am fine." His curt answer restored their professional relationship to its proper bounds and forestalled any further shows of concern on Carl's part. He told his man to go on ahead, that he would be fine to start his day by himself.

He looked around at the hallway with glazed eyes.

He could not understand it— How?

How had it all gotten back to normal? Why were the knights standing as if they had never been toppled? How had the floor been cleaned of his two-toned blood? Where had all of his wounds gone?

He did not imagine it— he could not have.

He could still see their eyes, feel their claws, hear their screams.

It had been right here… this was where he had fallen, to his death, he thought; where his life-force had bled out of his tattered skin.

But he was whole, sound of mind and body. His clothes were just a little wrinkled, but there was nothing to suggest that he had been fighting for his very existence and losing just a few hours ago in this very place.

He could not wrap his mind around it, but he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he was still alive, he was not going to point out to whoever may be listening that the fact he should not be. So he turned his back on the pristine hallway, heading for the habitable quarters of the house.

With his hand still on the handles of the double doors, he looked back once more, searching for some hint that he was not mad, that he had not really imagined or dreamed up such an attack, but there was nothing to prove it true.

Shaking his head to clear it of those thoughts, he closed the door behind him.

And stopped.

He stood stock still and his heart began to race and pound in his temples as he felt a chill run up his spine.

The he turned to hear a soft hissing noise, so soft that he could easily believe he was imagining it, coming from somewhere by his left.

A flash of red…


End file.
